9 Incredible Things You Probably Don’t Know About WhatsApp?

While you are walking down the street, you see a man standing at a corner continuously gazing at his phone with his fingers moving fast across the display. Guess what? He’s most likely chatting on WhatsApp. So, whenever you are busy typing on your phone and someone walks up to you and says, “Bhai, kya chalu hai, WhatsApp?” don’t feel offended. And why should you? After all, WhatsApp is currently ruling the world!

Alright! That’s enough of preaching. You may be an expert going tik-tik-tik on your phone keypad, probably typing at a speed of 200 words per minute, and so you may call yourself a ‘WhatsApp Guru’. But, hold on, buddy! There are several things you still don’t know about WhatsApp. Listed below are a few.

1. Use the same number for WhatsApp while you travel overseas

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In case you plan to travel to another country, you don’t have to change your SIM card to be able to stay in touch with your friends via WhatsApp. You can do it using your regular number. The process to do so is very simple. When you insert your new SIM and try to active WhatsApp, you will be asked to register that new number. Simply ignore the message by cancelling it. Your WhatsApp will still be linked to your usual number, while you are using your new SIM card.

2. Hide the Blue Ticks

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If you haven’t fiddled around enough with WhatsApp, you are probably missing out on this amazing feature. Do you know it is possible to hide the Blue Ticks, tricking your friends into believing that you haven’t yet read their messages? Your boss would most likely be one of the reasons why you would want to do it. After all, who likes reading those annoying messages from bosses on a fine weekend morning?

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Turning off the ‘read messages’ alert (Blue Ticks) is very simple. Go to Settings – Account – Privacy. Now, uncheck the ‘Read Receipts’ option at the bottom, and that’s it!

3. Add contact shortcuts

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While you are trying to do your best at ignoring a few weird people on WhatsApp, there are some you love to stay in touch with (parents, boyfriend/girlfriend, and most likely your boss, if he isn’t an annoying one).

Long press the desired contact to select it, and in the top left menu select ‘Add Chat Shortcut’. The contact will get added to your home screen. As a result, you don’t have to scroll through an entire list of chats to get to your desired contact.

4. Favourite a Message

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While chatting with your friends, there are times when they may send a crucial message, for instance, address or a critical website link. Chances are the message may get lost, and scrolling back to the message is a tedious task.

WhatsApp lets you favourite an important chat message that you may want to relook occasionally. All you need to do is, long press the desired message, and a star icon will appear on the top menu of the chat window. Tap on it and a star will appear at the end of the selected message. To retrieve the message, tap on the chat name and select ‘Starred messages’.

5. Use WhatsApp on Your Computer

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In case you didn’t know this yet, you are probably missing out on another cool feature available on WhatsApp. It is now possible to sync your WhatsApp with your computer. The process is very simple:

Open WhatsApp on your phone and tap on the menu button on the top-right corner.

Select WhatsApp Web from the drop-down.

On your computer, go to web.whatsapp.com and scan the QR code displayed on your screen.

Once you scan the QR code, WhatsApp will sync with your computer. This trick comes handy when you are busy on your computer and cannot afford to spend time chatting through your phone.

6. Changing Font Formatting in WhatsApp

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WhatsApp now allows you to bold, italicise and strikethrough text.

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Doing this is very simple: Let’s take a sentence ‘How are you?’ for instance. Simply type *How are you?* and the sentence will show in bold to you and your friend. Similarly, type in _How are you?_ and ~How are you?~ to italicise or strikethrough text respectively.

7. Delete Your WhatsApp Account Completely

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Remember! When you uninstall WhatsApp, your account is still active and hasn’t been deleted. Others can still view your profile in their contact list. However, in case you wish to move to a new WhatsApp account, it would be wise to delete the previous account.

To delete your WhatsApp account, you need to go to the Settings – Account – Delete My Account. Now just follow the steps displayed on the screen to delete your account.

8. Move Your WhatsApp Data to a New Phone

If you plan to move your WhatsApp account to a new phone using the same number, you can do it with ease. But, how do you transfer your old chats?

On your old phone, go to settings – Chats – Chat Backup – Backup to Google Drive. All your chats will get stored on the Google Drive. Now install WhatsApp on your new phone and enter your old number. During the installation, you will be prompted to backup the data. Choose the Google account you used to save the backup and all the chats will get restored, bingo!

9. Find hotspots in your locality

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Did you know WhatsApp also lets you know about the most popular spots in your area? From the finest restaurants to the best grocery store in your locality, it helps you locate them all.

While you are in a chat window tap on the share (clip) icon at the top. From the drop down, select ‘Locations’. Below ‘Send your current location’, a list of all the hot spots in your locality will be displayed. If you wish to invite your friend to one of these places, simply tap on it, and a card will be sent to him/her with the location address.

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So, these are just some of the things you probably didn’t know WhatsApp could do. However, if you fiddle around more with the app, you may come across a few more exciting tricks like managing the auto download of media, etc. In case you do, don’t forget to share them with us.